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User blog:Cougarcat/Season 8 Review
Here I am again, to Review the River Monsters "Mysteries of the Ocean" season. We are venturing into the territory of the episodes made much later in the series, meaning that it is now more possible that there are some that you have yet to see. As always, this review will contain spoilers, and this warning is more relevant that is would be for episode made 10 years ago that you (probably) already watched. If you haven't already read any of these reviews, we are judging the season based on Location, Monster Variety, Monster Originality, Mystery, Culture, and Monster Size. As usual, most of our ratings will be subjective, so the number I draw out will be quite arbitrary. It is just my opinion, different people could surely draw different conclusions. And of course, every season has some episodes that are absolutely stunningly well done, even by River Monsters Standards, but this is a rating of the season as a whole. Ratings will be in stars out of five. 'Location-' I maybe should have clarified this in the past. Location does not necessarily mean Location variety, although that is by far the most important part of a seasons stars earned by location. Another important area is how interesting the location is. For example, the "Atomic Assassin" episode in Season 5 earns maximum points here. So how would Season 8 stack up to the others here? In terms of location variety, probably this season wouldn't score very high. Every episode is set in the warmer regions of the ocean, even though the end of "Terror in Paradise" is set in Puget Sound, that still is just the episode's second half, and anyway, the majority of the episode was shot in the Bermuda triangle. However, I will actually give this season 4 stars here, because each episode was in an extremely interesting region. Episode 1 saw Jeremy travelling to Thailand and the areas of Southern France rife with billionaires. Then, he went to the shipwrecks of Florida, and then to 1000-foot deep blue holes in the middle of land that look like they should only be 50-feet deep. Finally, he travelled to the Baja Penninsula in Mexico, an area full of drug cartels, and then went down to the low-oxygenated waters of Peru. Personally, Season 8's location really stood out to me, however, this isn't true for everyone. In fact, I've heard quite a few complaints from River Monsters fans who see RM as a show where an adventurous angler travels to remote'' freshwater locations to find the freshwater fish that stack up to the ocean giants. Many fans complain that in Season 8 Jeremy just went to the Ocean to find the giants. I don't agree with this, but its important to take note of this opinion. My Rating - **** '''Monster Variety- '''This is also another place where I feel that Season 8 shines. In the episode "Invisible Killers", Jeremy tracks down parasitic horrors that are in many ways scarrier than the giants. Its Monsters Inside Me hosted by Jeremy Wade, which in my opinion makes it better. Then of course, the rest of the episodes are full of multi-armed cephalapods and stinging jellyfish, and even a sea serpent. My Rating- **** '''Monster origionality- '''One thing that is definitely not debatable is that this season deserves a high Monster Originality, I don't think any of the culprits in River Monsters Season 8 were ever the culprits of previous episodes, and that is quite impressive for a Season this late in the series. My Rating- **** '''Mystery- '''At least right now, Season 8 seems to be on a roll. Another super enchanting part of this season was mystery. Every single episode (except the first one) had a chilling mystery. *cough* blue holes *cough*. However, in my opinion, the best one was "Devil of the Deep", where Jeremy tried to find the culprit behind a mysterious spate of deaths, and found a monster that had replaced sharks on the food chain, but had accidently occupied the spot right above humans instead of right below (so don't overhunt, kids, because sometimes the animal that replaces the old one will end up...). Of course the best mystery in the whole season was the hunt for the Sea Serpent in Episode 1. My Rating- **** '''Culture-' ''' '''I think Episode 1 may have honestly been the only episode in the entire season that focused on culture. "Terror in Paradise" did feature the Lusca monster, but other than that, it was just the first episode. As I always say, one episode never redeems a whole season. My Rating- ** '''Monster Size- '''This is the other category. Apart from the Sea Serpent in the "Deep Sea Demon" episode, I can't honestly think of any culprit that frequently weighs over 100 pounds. Maybe the Pacific octopus does, maybe not. I think that this was a major problem for the later Seasons of River Monsters. What really made people like the Goonch was the fact that nobody thought that it would end up being that big, and that magic was never really recreated. My Rating- ** Over All Rating 3/5+ So what do I make of all this. Of all of the seasons that I gave a 3/5, I would definitely rank Season 8 as the best. However, I don't honestly feel like all of the episodes are quite good enough to give it a higher score. I really enjoyed them, but they usually missed something. The fish were smaller, and culture was smaller. Perhaps "Deep Sea Demon" was the best River Monsters episode ever made, but most of the other episodes were not quite as good. Don't get me wrong, this season was great, but not quite good enough to make 4/5. We still have one more season to review, Season 9, the River Monsters final season. Perhaps Season 9 will in my opinion recreate the magic of Season 1 and 2, but we'll have to see. After that, I will probably rank the seasons in order from my least favorite to the one that I've spent the most time watching and like the most. Thank you so much for reading my rants, and I'll see you then. And please, leave me a comment sharing your opinion. Category:Blog posts